Amateur Radio call sign history

[altivo]

Begin nerdy topic, skip if uninterested. :D

While my bread dough is rising this morning, I took time to pursue a little research I have been meaning to do for quite a while. I wanted to know who, if anyone, had held my ham radio call sign before I grabbed it in 2012.

A little history for that: I first became interested in amateur radio at about age 12, introduced by my Uncle Wes whose station was K8HFM. Getting an actual license was intimidating, though. You had to pass a test to prove you could understand Morse code at least at a slow speed, plus answer a bunch of technical and regulatory questions. Even the easiest beginner license, the Novice level at that time, put me off for years. It wasn't until 1983 (at the advanced age of 33) that I finally made an appointment and took the test. It wasn't really all that difficult, and I passed. When my license arrived in the mail several weeks later, I had been assigned the station call KA9NZI. In the interim, I had actually built a small transceiver from a HeathKit prepackaged set of parts, and I quickly strung up a kinky wire antenna from the picture moldings in my Chicago apartment. Miraculously, it all worked and I managed enough shaky Morse to make an actual contact.

I'll spare you the years of history that followed, other than to say I got better at Morse, and studied enough to pass the next exam level for a General class license in about 1986 or thereabouts. There was a time (back in the 1950s and 60s) when Novice class licenses were assigned call letters beginning with "WN" and when upgrading to General, they were allowed to drop out the "N" but by the 80s, that was no longer in effect. First time licensees received WA call signs then for General class, or KA call signs for Novice. The Technician class (with access only to VHF or higher frequencies) was in the middle there and I'm not sure what they were getting in the 80s. Anyway, if you had started as a Novice with a KA sign, you could just keep it and use it with the additional privileges of the General class; or you could let the FCC give you a completely unrelated WA (or WB after they ran out of WA call signs.) This created some chaos and occasional accusations on the air from old timers with 5 character W or K call signs, who seemed to think if you used a KA call you should not be on the General class frequency bands. Some were even suspicious of WA or WB call signs, and I remember hearing one codger refer to "WB" as meaning "Wet Bottom." This eventually helped to prompt the FCC to change its rules again in several respects.

The end result was both a lot of confusion and a complete breakdown of the class distinctions once made by call sign prefix. The prefix N came into use around then. The AA through AL prefixes, which along with N had been "owned" by the US but not used, also appeared on the air, usually held by Advanced class licensees. Then the exam and privilege structures were revised, and the Novice and Advanced licenses were dropped. Those who held them could still use them within the privileges originally granted, but no new exams or licenses for those levels were issued. The original call signs in the forms W#xxx or K#xxx had almost all been used up by then. While it was once FCC practice to reassign calls after the associated license expired or was surrendered, the record keeping was considered too costly and that practice was dropped.

Another result was that all new call signs were six characters long, Wx#xxx or Kx#xxx. This was pretty unpopular because the longer call sign increases the likelihood of an error in transcribing Morse code, and takes longer to send. (Only a fraction of a second more, but still this was made a big issue.) Ultimately, the FCC was convinced to allow any ham holding a General class license or higher to request any valid call sign that was not currently in use. The cost of record keeping was reimbursed as an administrative fee paid by the applicant.

All this leads up to my indecisiveness that lasted 20 years, over whether I should drop the "A" out of my own call to make it K9NZI. I was pretty sure I had once checked and found that W9NZI and K9NZI were already assigned and active anyway. It wasn't until I was renewing my automobile license plate in 2012 that I committed to changing calls, since I had the call sign on my plates as well. Wonder of wonders, K9NZI was available then and I applied for it. You could list more than one choice in order of preference, in case someone beat you to the first selection, so I added my Uncle Wes' former call K8HFM as a second choice since he was by then a "silent key" as hams refer to those who are deceased. I received K9NZI and changed my license plates to match.

For another decade, I occasionally wondered who had previously been K9NZI and what happened to them. Today I finally found a relatively easy way to research that, thanks to the Internet Archive. Some of you know of the "Wayback Machine," which archives extinct web site contents, but that is just part of the many historical functions the Internet Archive provides. And one of their services has put amateur radio call sign directories on line in a readable and viewable format. The indexing is all but non-existent, but at least you can choose a year and a call sign district, of which the US has ten, and scroll through a PDF of those call sign listings if the year is available. Every single year is not there, but most of the gaps are earlier than about 1950. So I started browsing.

W9NZI was held by the same fellow from some time in the 1950s at least until near the end of the century. He originally lived in the Chicago area but moved around quite a bit and in the end was in Dunedin, Florida (presumably retired then.) But to my surprise, I could find no trace of K9NZI until it was attached to my name in 2012. Poking around in the books from the 50s up through the 90s made it clear that call signs after K9Mxx were not ever assigned by the FCC to new licensees. Just when they would have reached that point was when they changed to start giving out WA9xxx calls instead. So apparently, in the century and more of amateur radio history in the US, I have held not just one, but two unique call signs. I think I'll keep K9NZI, thanks.

I tried once to upgrade to the top level Extra class license, but missed the required number of correct answers on the rather obtuse and extensive examination by one question and I haven't tried again. The extra privileges earned by Extra class licensing are pretty limited and just as exotic as the exam questions are. One of those is the privilege of requesting a four character call sign, but obviously the number of four character combinations, the second or third of which must be a numeral and the other three alphabetic, is pretty small. The competition is fierce when one of those becomes available for reassignment.

All this is kind of silly anyway. But I found it amusing looking through those old directories to find out who else held call signs ending in "9NZI" over the years. I've always been weird, and there's one more way in which I am unique.

Comments

[hrrunka]

...and I thought the UK callsign scheme was complicated enough... ;)

[altivo]

LOL! I admit I've never figured out the UK system, if it has one. The problem in the US is that they've changed all the rules repeatedly, but always grandfathered existing licenses when they did so. Sort of like the anti-prophetic advice from way back in the 20s: "What to do with amateurs? Stick 'em on 300 meters and down. They'll never get out of their back yards with that." Obviously from a time when no one had any idea about how to generate short wave signals, let alone how well they can propagate.

I left out the chaos from before 1934 or so, when the Department of the Interior was in charge of radio licensing. But those call signs were all made invalid and new ones assigned.

[hrrunka]

Before about 1920, callsigns were of the form 2xx. In 1920 they started sticking a G in front, so amateur callsigns from back then were G2xx. They worked their way up the digits 'til WW2, by which time they'd used 2,3,4,5,6 and 8. I think, even back then, 7 and 9 were reserved for other purposes. After WW2 they started with G1xxx, G2xxx and G3xxx, and worked their way up. Digits 1, 6, 7 and 8 were for "Class B", 2 was for "Artificial aerial" (whatever that means), and 3 and 4 were "Class A" (for those who'd passed a 12wpm Morse test). 9 was reserved, and 5 was used for reciprocal/visitors licences. Around 1984 they ran out of G4xxx space, and decided to use G0 for "Class A". Things began to get complicated in 1991 or so, when they started issuing 2r0xxx and 2r1xxx for Novice Class A and B licences. G space ran out around 1996, and they started using M0 and M1 for Class A and B. Then, around 2001, they introduced the Foundation licence, for which they used M3, and Intermediate licence, which picked up the 2r0 sequence from the Novice licence it replaced. Now, M3, M6 and M7 are Foundation, 2 is Intermediate, all the Gs, and M0, M1 and M5 are full licences. The A/B distinction vanished with the Morse test in 2004.

The regional prefix modifiers are an additional common cause of confusion. My licence document shows my callsign beginning with M#0. The # stands for the regional prefix modifier, and all UK/Crown Dependency callsign users must adjust their regional prefix depending upon where they're operating. For personal callsigns, the modifiers are nothing for England (except for callsigns starting with a 2 which have to use E), M for Scotland, W for Wales, I for Northern Ireland, D for Isle of Man, J for Jersey and U for Guernsey. Club calls use a different set, X for England, S for Scotland, C for Wales, N for Northern Ireland, T for Isle of Man, H for Jersey and P for Guernsey. B is used for special calls from anywhere, and occasionally users can apply for a variation to use a different one. This year, for instance, we may apply to use Q to celebrate the queen's platinum jubilee. I came to the conclusion that the temporary variations are more of a pain and confusion than anything else. So far, I've only made use of the M0 and MW0 forms of my present callsign.

[altivo]

Hee! That's every bit as bad as the US jumble. I had noticed when they started assigning "M" call signs, figured they'd run out of "G" combinations.

Back in the early days of spark transmitters, the US used call signs that started with a digit as well. At that time they had the country divided into nine regions, and used 1 through 9 to distinguish that I believe. Later they put "W" in front of the number, and sometime after WW2 added a zero region and moved the boundaries around for it.

We used to have to add a slant and a region number if we were operating outside our home region. Physical moves between regions required getting an entirely new call sign. Thank goodness they stopped all that, and except for some special cases, the region number in the call now indicates only where the licensee lived when they first received a license. If you pay the admin fee for a "vanity" call sign of your choice, you can pull one from any region or zone in US territory pretty much.

[hrrunka]

Whic, I guess, explains why US folks (at least on CW) pretty much always tag their State after their name. Once you could make a guess where they might be based on the digit, but not any more. Here, there's the added advantage (if you like that kind of thing) of changing DXCC when you wander across a border...

[altivo]

I do like that sort of thing, yes, arbitrary as it is. Forty years licensed, I still haven't even worked all the US states, let alone a hundred "countries."

Mostly because I'm more interested in the mechanics and process than I am in making piles of log entries, I guess. These days the technologies are changing faster than I can read about them, let alone actually try the new ones. My brain is stuck in the packet radio era, I'm afraid.

[hrrunka]

I recently took a CWops Morse course, and part of it involved joining in with the odd contest. I ended up working 19 States and 5 Canadian Provinces during the ARRL International DX CW Contest. Others in my class did rather better, but contesting doesn't really hold my attention for long, and with CW and computerised logging it was more of a typing and mouse-clicking exercise than anything. I hardly touched the key at all...

Every now and again I fire up WSJT-X to see what gives, but it's got the same not exactly gripping vibe. Modes like FT8 don't offer much unless you're just collecting countries.

[altivo]

Yup, my feelings are pretty much congruent. I used to do contests mainly with the intention of adding countries, states, counties, or whatever. And I gave it up when I found out how difficult it was to get actual verification (QSL or online log entry) of contest contacts. I made some significant QRP conquests while contesting with only 5 watts of power and really would have liked to be able to prove them. No such luck, mostly, though some Aussie and Kiwi hams were kind enough to cooperate.

I find I have little interest and considerable aversion to "ragchewing" because so much of it ends up in expressions of offensive attitudes and politics, and I find myself thinking "If they knew I am gay, or that I am a socialist, they'd not even speak to me." At least, not if they are US guys. The Canadians and Europeans are a lot less prejudiced and more friendly in my experience.

[hrrunka]

During the course we were pointed at the CWTs (four hour-long mid-week contests mainly for the swapping of CWops numbers) and the SST (twice a week, and again an hour long). I found the CWTs generally had operators running at twice my maximum speed, though occasionally I found someone running at under 25wpm. The SST has a maximum of 20wpm in the rules, and I have heard a few participants (including a couple of my classmates), but it's rather US-centred, and I've never managed to make any contacts during one.

My primary radio focus is Summits On The Air. I very occasionally take a side-track into Parks On The Air. Both have similar short exchanges, small pile-ups from time to time, and seldom much on-air chatter. POTA relies on the activator uploading a log, but SOTA doesn't (though they do ave ways of checking if necessary).

[altivo]

There was a time when I might have been copying 20 wpm, but I'm sure that isn't now. I'm probably most comfortable in the 10 to 15 wpm range. But I suspect most ops who are transmitting CW at 25 wpm or higher are using a keyboard and a code generator. Probably they use computer assistance to copy the code at that speed as well. Most of the old timers who did all that in their heads and could hammer out Morse on a bug at that speed are long gone.

I became more inclined towards RTTY at that point. I dunno if anyone is using that any more, with all the phase modulated computerized modes that have been invented and promoted in the last 20 years.

[hrrunka]

I'd probably pass a 12wpm test on a good day. I do SOTA chasing at about 15wpm. I can just about run a contest at 20wpm so long as I can listen to a few exchanges from a caller before calling them myself.

I still see RTTY on the air from time to time. Most of the digital folk who do the DX-chasing thing have moved to FT8 and its derivatives. If you want to get DXCC (or whatever) then it seems to be the easiest way. I've certainly picked up a country or two that would have been a challenge on CW. There are even FT4 contests from time to time. There are oft-repeated complaints from CW old-timers about the noise in the small chunks of band FT8 and FT4 generally use, partly because one of them covers an ancient rock-bound QRP frequency on 40 metres, but it's the nature of those modes that they hammer their less-than-3kHz-wide windows, and simply aren't heard elsewhere. If you want to know whether a band's open, just listen briefly on the FT8 window...

[altivo]

FT8 has indeed attracted my attention because, in spite of it's rather impersonal nature, it does provide a statistical and scientific experiment for examining propagation characteristics.

I need to replace my fallen antenna this spring before I can get involved in much of anything, though. Wind and weather are not cooperating yet.

[hrrunka]

I was quite lucky with my antennas this winter. The worst problem was that one of the storms force-feathered my hexbeam, and I had to figure out what had slipped and put it right. We've had a decidedly mild winter. We're hoping the long dry spell we had last spring will not be repeated.

[ranunculus]

That is really cool. I've known a number of Ham Radio operators over the years, and every one of them was a character. Didn't know the stuff about the call signs though!
Just did another Google check, but so far as I know I am the only person in the USA with my specific name.

[altivo]

Hah! Lucky you are. My legal name is so common that I always use my middle name as well to help differentiate myself. In Chicago I was pursued for other people's debts. In Michigan I received late night phone calls meant for some guy with the same name who happened to be a drug dealer, apparently.

And my husband has the same first name and last initial. Friends refer to us as "The Garys."

[lhexan]

I have nothing to add, but I enjoyed learning about this sector of engineering.

[altivo]

Not much about engineering, I'm afraid. It's mostly a history of administrative fumbles and tomfoolery. When this mess began, FCC records for amateur radio licenses were kept on physical file cards. As the number of licenses increased, it's easy to see how errors and inadequate projections became more and more common.

Now it's all computerized and searchable. In the days of the file cards, charges for record updates and idditions were nominal, if any. Now the FCC proposed to charge a $50 "administrative service" charge for every new application, renewal, or upgrade. That includes even those which are rejected or fail. You can imagine the reaction that got. After much pressure by the ARRL and some individual members of Congress, the FCC lowered that to $35 but is still going to impose the fee.

In order to keep amateur radio available even to young people with limited means, the ARRL is going to underwrite their first time license exams and applications. Those of us who have been around for a while aren't so lucky. My license will come up for renewal this fall, and it is going to cost at least $35 to get it renewed, when that merely involves someone updating a computer database. They don't even send out printed license documents any more.

[songdogmi.wordpress.com]

I'm like you in being intimidated by the licensing process even though I was interested in ham radio as a teenager. Well, worse, because I still haven't done it. I've been poking around at radio again lately (say, last six months-ish), looking at YouTubes and picking up stray bits of info. I didn't know they'd changed the call sign schemes that much, not to much that often. What a pain that must've been. Congrats on your good fortune with your call sign.

In SecondLife, a few years ago, I met a guy in Europe who is big into radio, professionally I think (technical stuff), and he introduced me to software-defined radio and the SDRs that are available via the web. I logged into the one out of the Universite of Twente and had a great time listening to longwave broadcasts in Europe, and since then have poked at web SDRs located elsewhere. It's not quite the same as having a good receiver or transceiver of my own, though.

[altivo]

In a rapidly changing world, I still encourage you to get a license. You don't have to know Morse any more. The Technician class license is actually a pretty easy examination to pass, and that gets you access to VHF and UHF, all the equipment you need is a portable handheld. With a computer linkup to that there's an awful lot you can explore. Used handhelds can be had for a couple hundred or less. The license exam will cost you about $40 now I guess, $35 to the FCC for the paperwork (robbery!) and $5 to the volunteer examiner group. I'm not current on Tech privileges, I admit, but I believe they used to include access to part of the 10 meter band as well.

SDRs are confusing to me. The terminology is applied to a lot of stuff, receive and transmit, some of it networked and some not. I keep watching for a definitive "SDR for Dummies" type book, but haven't seen one yet. Digital modes, where you use the sound card in your computer and specialized software to send/receive and decode messages, are my current interest. Those range from actual Morse code and venerable RTTY (teletype) to all sorts of space age robotic operations.